Vile Creature – Cast of Static and Smoke (Review)

This is a themed album that comes with a short story. It’s an ambitious concept, but seems to have been pulled off quite naturally by the band across this 42 minutes.

The music is primarily a mix of heavy, malevolent sludge and doom, some of which has a suitably blackened veneer to it, adding some extra venomous bite. Along with some post-metal and punk elements thrown into the blender here and there for extra texture, Cast of Static and Smoke is an apocalytic feast that’s not just escapist entertainment, but an outright warning too.

These songs are emotive and filled with bleak, dark atmospheres. Raw and slow, this is ugly music that’s full of emotional outpourings and grim storytelling. Despite how sparse and stripped back the music is, it’s still layered and textured to a high degree. The band do raw heaviness well, but also do crawling, atmospheric, mood-driven music equally as proficiently, if not more so.

This is music born from the underground, birthed into pain and loathing. Without a place to call its own, it swells with malignant potency, before spilling its rotten guts on an uncaring world. This is the sound of Cast of Static and Smoke, and one that’s done extremely well.

Cast of Static and Smoke is harsh, unforgiving, and utterly compelling. Doom/sludge fans rejoice, for the newest incarnation of the bleakest doom gods is here.